Tornado lifts Mount cafe owner into air

"I didn't think it was a tornado until I was being blown across the road. The wnd was so strong it just lifted me up. off the ground." Petra-Lee Osbourne, Sidetrack Cafe

A Mount caf owner was swept off her feet into the path of cars and a tree and left battered and bruised as a mini-tornado swept through the Bay at the weekend.

Winds reached 96km/h in Tauranga and 124km/h in the Kaimai Range as severe weather ripped through the Bay region on Saturday. Shops and cafes at Marine Parade bore the brunt of some of the strongest winds, including Sidetrack Cafe.

Owner Petra-Lee Osbourne left the cafe to try to retrieve some outdoor furniture which was blowing away.

"It happens quite regularly with us, the gusts of wind tend to blow our furniture down the road. It's actually damaged cars before and we've had to pay for work to be done to fix the cars so I thought 'oh my God I don't want that to happen again' and ran out to get the chairs," she said.

"The next thing I knew I got swept up by the tornado. It was quite terrifying actually. I didn't think it was a tornado until I was being blown across the road. The wind was so strong it just lifted me up, off the ground. It was so strong, my feet were literally going, my feet weren't touching the ground."

Ms Osbourne said she could see cars coming around the corner where Marine Parade meets Adams Ave but was powerless to protect herself.

"I thought 'oh my God I'm going to hit the car'. Fortunately they stopped."

"I thought I've either got to stop myself against a tree or a parked car because there was no way I was able to stop myself."

Ms Osbourne managed to position herself against a tree for a short time. The moment has been captured on video by a woman watching the chaos from an upper level apartment.

Ms Osbourne, who weighs 65kg, said she managed to hold onto a nearby roped gate before the wind picked up again.

"I held on to the rope where the entrance to the camping ground is. I grabbed on to the rope and even then my feet were still off the ground.

"I just held on for dear life.

"I thought 'oh my God' this is not just a wind."

Ms Osbourne's pants were torn and she was left battered and bruised.

"I've got massive bruises on my thigh and my elbow and a little mark under my eye and I'm really, really stiff today. I didn't realise my body would hurt so much. I must have hit that tree with some force," she said.

Ms Osbourne said she was grateful she was not holding her baby girl while crossing the road, as she has often done in the past.

"There's no way I could have stopped. She would have taken the full impact," Ms Osbourne said.

Sidetrack Cafe lost seven chairs, which ended up in pieces down at Pilot Bay.

"I can laugh about it a little now, but at the time I was absolutely terrified," she said.

Metservice meteorologists said the extreme wind was the result of an approaching low, prompting weather instability such as thunderstorms and strong winds.

Meteorologist Rob Kerr said winds were often stronger in areas surrounded by water and especially so when there was a large land mass, like Mauao, where wind tended to strengthen when travelling around the edges of it.

"Winds will often follow around and increase around the sides of land lumps like that. You could have seen some real strong gusts there," Mr Kerr said.